Worldwide incident?
Sitting in his church office on Paseo del Pueblo Norte, Mell sounds out the hum he hears: "Ommmmm," like a calming meditation, but he says it's anything but soothing.
Mell moved to Taos seven years ago without knowing about the troublesome noise but woke up several times in the middle of the night hearing a loud hum. Thinking it was the refrigerator, he walked toward the kitchen, but the sound seemed to recede.
When he walked outside, the hum completely disappeared.
The story makes perfect sense to Joe Mullins, the retired University of New Mexico physicist who in the 1990s headed up a task force of scientists from the national laboratories at Sandia and Los Alamos and from Phillips Air Force Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base to interview "hum hearers" and examine every possible sound surrounding them.
"I don't think it's Taos at all," says Mullins, who lives on Albuquerque's West Side.
"It's a worldwide thing" that's been reported everywhere from China and Japan to Kokomo, Ind.
The Internet has numerous site and chat rooms, including the "hum forum" on Yahoo, where hearers from around the world gauge relief methods and discuss hum locations.
Stephen Daniels, who owns Needlepoint de Taos and Starving Artists Gallery, said he happened to be talking about the Taos hum with a hotel clerk last month in Phoenix.
"He said, 'You know, I hear the Taos hum here.' ''

Ear disorder
Mullins says the task force conclusion was that the hum stems from some kind of ear condition that probably affects about 2 percent of the population.
"It's generated from the inside," he said, comparing it to tinnitus, which is a high-pitch sound.
But the hum can't be categorized as tinnitus because what hum-hearers describe is a low-pitch noise.
The task force considered further research on the ear condition, but Mullins said it was difficult to get funding.
"This is not life-threatening," he said.
As annoying as the hum has been for Mell, he's learned how to deal with it:
"It's not painful, and if I focus on something else, I'll lose consciousness of it."
There have also been mornings when he awakens, notices the humidifier was never turned on to produce white noise that would mask the hum and realizes he slept all night without any disturbance.
The hum seems most bothersome at night.
"If you live in a noisy area like New York City, you're not likely to hear it," Mullins said. A rural place like Taos is prime real estate for the hum to surface.
City noises mask the hum, which is why the task force suggested using a "white noise" machine to mask it during sleep hours.

Moving away
And if that doesn't work?
"I knew some people who moved away because it bothered them so much," said Joel Lage, who works at Import Outlet.
But Mullins says moving is a bad option.
It's true that leaving Taos' high altitude for a sea level locale can at first cause changes in the ear so that the hum goes away. But it's just temporary, he says it will come back.
Gallery owner Lage said that Taos had moved on from the hum and that locals were now more interested in the vapor trails, called "chemtrails," left in skies by aircraft.
One conspiracy theory is that some jet contrails are composed of chemicals being deliberately distributed by the government as part of high-tech military communications or for other nefarious reasons.
"People think that a grid is being laid down," Lage said.
By whom?
"Big brother," he said.